TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka (Reuters) - V. Premkumar once longed for the day when peace would pack the sands of his battle-scarred Sri Lankan beach resort with tourists.
Now, with a Norwegian-brokered truce in place and talks to end the ethnic conflict around the corner, he is not so sure.
Premkumar is the manager of the Nilaweli resort near the port of Trincomalee -- one of a string of bewitchingly beautiful beaches that are among the island's best-kept secrets thanks to nearly two decades of war waged by Tamil separatists.
Premkumar fears peace will open the pristine northeastern coast to the low-budget, mass-market tourism that has scarred beaches elsewhere in Sri Lanka.
"Of course I want peace and tourism like everyone else. But unless the authorities make sure this doesn't end up like the other resorts we won't have any tourists," said Premkumar.
His concerns are shared by environmentalists and the handful of die-hard eco-tourists willing to pay for east coast resorts despite a conflict that has killed more than 64,000 people.
"We need to save this place from package tourists," said German accountant Hans Heise.
Heise and his family are regular visitors to Sri Lanka and spend much of their time with the rest of the island's 400,000 tourists in the resorts of southwest coast.
But this year his son threatened to boycott the family vacation unless it included a trip to Trincomalee, about 240 km (150 miles) northeast of the capital Colombo.
It is not hard to see why. The emerald expanse of Trincomalee bay is ringed with mile upon gleaming mile of beach.
TOURIST EL DORADO
Unlike the slivers of sand squeezed between resorts in the south, Trincomalee's beaches are enormous, starting under the shadows of scrub jungles and sloping so gently into the ocean that the water is only chest deep 100 m (330 ft) from the shore.
This is El Dorado for a tourist industry that has never shaken off the war's shadow, despite crippling price cuts and ruthless development of the less enchanting but safe southwest coast.
The tourist board has now begun an eco-tourism drive to woo back high-spending Westerners from the Maldives, a coral island nation a one-hour flight from Colombo on the west coast.
"We must make sure that don't fall into the same trap that prevents sensible, sustainable tourism," said Gehan De Silva Wijeratne, director of Jetwing Eco-Holidays.
The road to Nilaweli is free of the cheap bars and pricey boutiques that cram other tourist towns, though troupes of monkeys can be as pesky as touts and views of rice paddies are interrupted by the occasional barracks or bombed-out house.
DANCING DOLPHINS
A 15-minute boat ride to Pigeon Island reveals coral reefs as yet unmolested by trophy hunters, and snorkellers surface to gasp air that has not the slightest whiff of diesel.
Out in Trincomalee bay, flying fish flop on to boats, gregarious dolphins dance to the throb of the engines and the lucky few may glimpse the dark flukes of a diving blue whale.
"This is the paradise portrayed on the cover of every tourist brochure," said Frenchman Boiton Robert.
Trincomalee's status as the capital designate of the separate minority Tamil state demanded by the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has kept it out of tourist brochures for years.
But Premkumar's Nilaweli beach hotel, now packed because of a lull in the fighting, has often had enough guests to stay open, while surfing fanatics have always flocked to waves of Arugam Bay at the southernmost tip of the war zone further down the coast.
But most resorts have been less fortunate. The Norwegian-brokered truce signed in February has not broken the eerie silence surrounding Pasikudah, arguably the island's most beautiful beach, 70 km (43 miles) south of Trincomalee.
The palm-sheltered cove cut off from the ocean by great scallops of pink coral has not seen a tourist in years.
More than a dozen hotels competed for Pasikudah's beach front during a tourist boom before all-out war erupted in 1983. Now weeds push through the bottoms of dry swimming pools and hermit crabs burrow under restaurants levelled by the fighting.
But many Sri Lankans may be willing to brave the battle zone to revive livelihoods shattered by the war and almost destroyed last year by a rebel attack on the country's only international airport.
"There are only a few boats in Trincomalee," said one tour boat operator, who left the south a few months ago, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"One ride here brings more money than three in the south".
(Yahoo! India News:Sunday April 14, 8:40 AM)
